


A Simple Thing On Midsummer's Day

by wisdomeagle



Category: Angel: the Series, Firefly
Genre: Clothes, F/F, Fluff, Wedding Planning, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-23
Updated: 2005-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-17 21:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4682072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred and Kaylee get married, and River gets a bridesmaid's dress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Simple Thing On Midsummer's Day

Getting married is a simple thing. Choosing a wardrobe is the hardest part: clothes are very important; Kaylee was born knowing this and she's taught Fred what's important. They pick out clothes for more money than they should rightly be spending, acres of pretty smooth fabric that feels like the bare skin on the inside of Fred's thighs, long shawls that will be too hot for summer but that curl around Kaylee's neck and drape over her breasts, like Fred when she sneaks up behind her. 

River comes with them to look for a bridesmaid dress. "Because I'm the only maid," she says, "the maid of honor. The dress will cover my maidenhood, hide my shame. It will be pink."

"Pink's pretty," Kaylee says. "We'll choose something real pretty for you, all right?" She retreats into Fred-space, then, just Fred-and-Kaylee and ruffled silk. River knows not to linger, escapes to her own corner to look at the dresses that she'd wear if she were getting married.

Kaylee and Fred are talking about her. They whisper apologies to themselves that should be hers. "I wish I could do more for her, but Simon won't let me in his lab."

"Simon's jealous," Kaylee says. "Man-like."

"But if I could help his sister, then maybe he could..." But she says no more for River to hear; she's run quietly out of the shop. If Simon fixes her, she'll be whole. She wants and doesn't want to be unbroken, but she doesn't want it to be Fred who fixes her. Fred should be a wild creature, mad like her, made like her, but when Kaylee touches Fred, her mind is healed and whole and she remembers how to laugh.

Fred hasn't been to a wedding in centuries, and Kaylee only the one -- Zoe and Wash. They're the only other married folk on board, since you don't count Mal, who married a woman-who-wasn't. Wasn't free to be married, Mal says. She was a woman all right, all woman all over.

"Like Fred," Kaylee says. "Like Kaylee," Fred says, at the same time.

No one else understands them when they collapse into a sea of giggles, floating away on the happy wave that is shared laughter.

Zoe has lots to say, in her quiet way, about being a wife. She talks to them each in turn, stern kindness about obligation, commitment, the meaning of vows.

"Marriage ain't a burden if you don't let it be one," she tells them. They laugh at the idea that they would ever be burdened by being with each other, regardless of sickness, regardless of health. But Zoe looks at them like she knows something they don't, like she's got a secret they only let you in on once you're a married woman.

Wash tells them the secret, easy. "No one's perfect," he says. "Not even Zoe. And since she's the closest to perfect there is, you two will have a lot to learn about imperfection."

But as the days grow long and longer, closer to their wedding day, there's nothing but perfection in the engine room and Kaylee's quarters. The engine keeps on spinning and the world keeps on turning, which is almost incredible when you realize that Fred is getting married. Fred is getting married, and not to a skinny D+D nerd or to a lab assistant with funny teeth, but to a woman who's as strong as she is smart and gentle as she is wise, a girl who knows what the inside of an engine looks like, who's seen all of Fred, the inside parts and the outside parts, the babbling parts and the confused parts, the part of Fred that's still a little bit awed when she knows they're traveling through starspace. But the worlds keep on going, even though Earth's long gone.

They get married on the longest day of the year, two weeks before Zoe and Wash will celebrate their fifth anniversary. Springtime is over and summer is here. They land on an uninhabited planet and Book preaches about love to the willow trees and the river that runs beneath them, the Tara. The river was a brook all spring, dancing, laughing merrily, tricksy, topsy-turvey. They visited her while Mal made a trade here, two months back. But now the river's slow, sedate, joins the wedding march, with River in the lead, tossing flowers solemnly and letting her pink dress trail behind her in the grass, Fred and Kaylee next, on Simon's arm and on Mal's, because their fathers are far away and worrying about their little girls. Mal said yesterday to Kaylee, "I promised your pa I wouldn't interfere with the learning he gave you, nor trouble you to be married if it didn't suit you, but I see that Winifred suits you and won't try to dissuade you from this damn foolish marriage plan."

Kaylee told Fred later, "Mal's just ornery because we won't let him watch."

"I bet he'd be happier if he could see us now," Fred sighed, gently caressing Kaylee's breast. "I know I am."

Book marries them and the whole crew cheers when he says, "All right, go ahead and kiss. We all know you want to." Wash puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles; River, suddenly lucid, holds Simon's hand and beams at them; even Mal looks slightly less grumpy than usual.

But the sun is high and the summer long, and Fred and Kaylee each have eyes for no one but the other.


End file.
